“L.A. is so big that if you don’t actually live in Hollywood, you might as well be from a different planet.”

Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I’m lucky enough to be in the position where I don’t make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

Don’t write what you think people want to read. Find your voice and write about what’s in your heart.

I write movies about mavericks, about people who break rules, and I don’t like movies about people who are pulverised for being mavericks.

Violence is fun, man.

I want to top expectations. I want to blow you away.

I loved history because to me, history was like watching a movie.

The easiest way to kill a cult is to make that cult accessible.

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

If you want to make a movie, make it. Don’t wait for a grant, don’t wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it.

I’ve always thought my soundtracks do pretty good, because they’re basically professional equivalents of a mix tape I’d make for you at home.

A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.

Pigs are filthy animals. I don’t eat filthy animals.

A movie doesn’t have to do everything. A movie just has to do a couple of things. If it does those things well and gives you a cool night at the movies, an emotion, that’s good enough.

I actually think one of my strengths is my storytelling.

The children despise their parents until the age of when they suddenly become just like them – thus preserving the system.

I don’t have to play the song all the way to the very end – I use it while it’s good and while it’s cool and while it’s exciting, and then I get out.

Coming from a small town it was tough to dream big. When I grew up in a small town in Georgia, my biggest dream was one day to be able to go to Atlanta.

I think it’s fun to look at people with big diamonds.

Then as the years went on and my listening became more deliberate, I would climb up on an arm of our big sofa to get my ear closer to the wireless speaker.

Cats on the bandstand, give them each a big hand, anyone who sweats like that must be all right.

The result, I think, is pretty interesting … we don’t expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped or hit The Ed Sullivan Show or the circuses or the big top.

I wasted a lot of my talent in the ’90s because the money was so big, and I was making so much money,

We have a big appetite for putting people down but, at the heart of everyone, there’s enough room for all of us to succeed.

You’ll never have any trouble with Mr. T, I’m just a big, calm teddy bear kind of guy. Mr. T ain’t ashamed to cry.